The LITC was designed with flexible open space and a highly adaptable infrastructure, allowing it to accommodate the changes required as the campus evolves. The LITC is composed of three primary elements: a sky-lit well suited to the traditional "stacks and carrels" library, a multi-use space that is daylit from the sides and a lantern-like architectural form that pins the larger building elements together at the corner. This lantern contains the main entry with a stack of key programmatic spaces wrapped in indoor and outdoor reading rooms. This third element is the organizational and social center of the building and the "front porch" of the campus.
Several sun mitigation strategies were necessary to maintain views between interior and exterior campus life, as well as to the landscape beyond. The building was oriented North-South, and deep-set façades were used to provide shade. Operable garage doors, louvers, loggias, overhangs, and arcades invite students to work and congregate outside in this extended "campus living room." In the evening, the project marks its place on campus with a warm glow. Louvers, which protect the project from the sun, reflect light and turn the building into a lantern.
These sun mitigation strategies form a significant part of the project's overall sustainable ethos, which responds to its location in the climatically hot Central Valley and promotes a sustainable future for the University. Just as the surrounding natural environment is a living laboratory for the sciences, engineering and policy sciences, the project itself is a teaching tool for sustainability.
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